


Up and Apart

by thesolemneyed



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, Angst with a Happy Ending, Friendship, Gen, Growing Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 18:22:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29336745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesolemneyed/pseuds/thesolemneyed
Summary: They always did go home in the end, with cheerful waves and promises ofagainandlaterandtomorrow.And tomorrow came without out fail. Again and again, it came; hundreds of tomorrows, and todays, and yesterdays, and they were together in all of them.Until, one day, it was their last day of being together.*****Growing up and growing apart sometimes come hand in hand, but can the damage be undone?
Relationships: Chwe Hansol | Vernon & Lee Chan | Dino
Comments: 8
Kudos: 15





	Up and Apart

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Birthday, Dino, my child, my king !! The funkiest future of kpop!

Those were the best nights.

When they laughed so hard that the air felt thin and their happiness tasted like candy floss on their tongues. When they meandered aimlessly from spot to spot, not caring where they went so long as they were together. When the freezing air and ground and sky did nothing to calm the fires in their hearts or quench their longing for more.

Part of it was knowing that, when they got home, their would be warm fires and soft blankets and loving embraces waiting for them; the security of love and childhood.

The other part was the fantasy that they need never go home; that they could remain in the wild and the world and become a part of it, free and unbound.

But they always did go home in the end, with cheerful waves and promises of _again_ and _later_ and _tomorrow_.

And tomorrow came without out fail. Again and again, it came; hundreds of tomorrows, and todays, and yesterdays, and they were together in all of them.

Until, one day, it was their last day of being together. Until tomorrow, Seungcheol and Joshua and Jeonghan would be on a train to their new lives, leaving the others behind in their yesterdays.

Chan thought maybe it would have been better if they didn’t know that this was their last day. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt so much, maybe it wouldn’t bleed into the whole night like a spoiled watercolour painting. He thought maybe it would let them have one last perfect night, like they had so many of before.

But they couldn’t unknow the truth and they couldn’t avoid it, as much as they might wish to.

And so the night was tinged with mourning and with ending. And, although they laugh ed until their sides ached and hugged each other so tightly they couldn’t breathe, something still felt like it was falling apart.

From then, things were different.

Jihoon and Wonwoo no longer came to hang out on weekdays, then they also started missing Sundays, then there were only there every other Saturday.

Minghao and Mingyu’s arguments started to stretch across more than one night, then started to split the group into factions. By the time Jun, Jihoon, Wonwoo, and Soonyoung came to leave, the group’s conversation was taught, pulled tight like a tripwire.

Chan was left on read by the group for the first time after that. His suggestion of a trip out was seen by all, but answered by none. He told himself it didn’t hurt, that it didn’t upset him too much, but he watched as the group sank down his inbox, weighed down by new conversations.

He saw Seokmin at Christmas, when his family came over for drinks, and he saw Seungkwan sometimes when he was working in the shop. Of course, he ran into the others in school corridors or in the woods or out on the fields, but never for more than a guilty smile and an awkward embrace.

Mingyu, Seokmin, Minghao, and Seungkwan left then without saying goodbye, without any marker or farewell. Someone put a message in the group thanking them for the time they spent together and the memories they created, but it sat unread on Chan’s phone, the red notification a spotlight of shame on his conscience.

And so, like a pot left simmering for too long, the group had reduced to just Chan and Hansol. They traded thin smiles, but nothing more.

Until February rolled around, cold and crisp with a thin layer of snow wrapping around them. Chan was lounging on his bed, carefully ignoring his looming homework deadlines and essay submissions. His phone chimed, bright and loud and Chan scooped it up, setting aside the book he was only really pretending to read.

_Happy Birthday for tomorrow, bro._

Hansol’s ID picture smiled up at him from the illuminated screen. The temptation to ignore it reared its ugly head for the briefest moment, until the noise comes again.

_You home?_

It felt like an age since Chan had read those words, since someone had asked. He opened the message, watching his phone inform Hansol of this fact. No going back now, he though to himself, and typed out a reply.

His text was read as soon as he sent it, but no reply came through. After a few beats, disappointment began to curdle in Chan’s stomach and he tossed it nonchalantly back onto the covers beside him.

Before his feelings could sour into anger, though, there was a skittering sound from his window. He leapt up and pulled back the curtains. Hansol was paused, arm raised to throw another pebble, grinning from ear to ear.

His smile faded, though, when the window below Chan’s was thrown upon and his mother’s voice rang out shrilly, “Chwe Hansol, you’re not throwing rocks at _my_ window I hope?” Although her tone was stern, there was a smile in her voice. Chan knew she’d spotted his friends’ absence and fretted about him.

“No, ma’am,” Hansol replied, tucking his arm behind his back in a slick movement. “Just wondering if Chan can come out for a bit?” He glanced up at where Chan hovered in his window still, the question aimed more at him than his mother.

Chan didn’t wait to hear what the parental reply was, he’d beg birthday privileges when he got home and remind his parents how long it had been since he’d been out, especially on a weeknight.

Shoving his feet into his boots and throwing on his coat, he thundered down the stairs and out the back door, calling a hasty goodbye to the house.

Outside, his eager breath formed clouds in front of him as he slapped his arms around Hansol in greeting. They turned tail and scrambled away as Chan could hear jovial calls about obeying some sort of curfew. He waved an arm in acknowledgement, not listening in the slightest.

After their initial jubilation, the two fell into a silence which was akin to awkward. They traded aimless stories that filled the time which had passed since they’d seen each other last; tales of dates, late nights, horrific family dinners. They laughed and cringed at the right spots, but the course of their conversation felt halted, artificial.

The cafe they rocked up to had seen many visits from them before, back when _they_ had been something more. The windows were dirty and smoggy from the cold. The floors were slippery although it was an ongoing debate as to why. Chan suspected over-scrubbing, but Mingyu had always sworn it was because they never mopped up the grease spills. Seungkwan had called him an idiot every time he said it, asking why the inside didn’t stink if that were the case, but Mingyu had just raised his shoulders mysteriously.

Chan smiled remembering their old arguments as the bell above the door tinkled and Hansol guided him to a grubby booth. “The usual?” Hansol discarded his coat in the seat opposite Chan who nodded in surprise. “One strawberry shortcake and a hot chocolate coming up,” Hansol said cheerily.

There was a bounce in his step as he approached the counter. Chan could tell he was obliviously reciprocating the flirtations of the girl behind the counter and he grinned at the table, trying to force his mind to catch up with his body. He pinched his arm lightly to check he wasn’t dreaming. He wasn’t.

Hansol came back with the tray, their drinks sloshing messily out of their mugs. He set Chan’s in front of him and shuffled into his booth. He raised the first forkful of his own cake on offering. “Cheers, my dude.” Chan tapped their forkfuls together and tucked in.

With the buzz of sugar bolstering him, Chan raised his eyes to take Hansol in. It was almost odd how little he had changed with his strong features and easy presence. The question bubbled from his stomach and out his mouth before he could stop it, “Why did you want to hang out today?”

Hansol tipped his head in question. “What do you mean,” he asked around a mouthful of cake.

Oddly, Chan felt embarrassed now. He shrugged, dropping his gaze down to his plate. “Doesn’t matter,” he mumbled. All the angry, confused, forgotten feelings that had been brewing inside him for the past months were struggling inside him now. He felt oddly like he might cry.

There was a clink as Hansol set his fork down on his plate. “Chan,” he said softly, “why would I not want to hang out with you on your birthday?” The confusion in his voice made Chan feel more annoyed.

Frowning down at his plate, Chan shrugged again. “You didn’t care last year.” He sounds like a brat and he knows it. “Besides,” the words are tumbling out now, a magician’s handkerchief of hurt, “it’s not like we’ve seen each other all year. This is the first time I’ve heard from you since the others left? You live _next door_ and you don’t even say ‘hi’ to me at school any more.” Mortified, he swiped away tears.

“Hey, hey,” Hansol scooted round to Chan’s side of the booth, pushing him across the seat so he could squeeze in next to him, “I’m sorry.” His arms were wrapped around Chan’s shoulders in a way that just makes him cry harder. “I’m sorry, Chan.”

Chan was humiliated, and yet the tears dripped down. “It just,” he took a shuddering breath, trying to calm himself, compose himself, “it feels like everything fell apart and I watched it happen but I couldn’t do anything about it, you know? And it feels like everyone else just moved on, everyone else went away or got new friends and I’m just stuck and I’m so _lonely_.”

Hansol was making soothing noises into his hair, letting Chan’s tirade burn itself out. When his breathing was under control again and he’d wiped his face with the grainy napkins on the table, Hansol let Chan squirm away from him. They sat in silence for a few moments, both fidgeting with unsaid words.

“Do you wanna know why I really wanted to see you today?” Hansol asked. Chan nodded, still not looking up. “I wanted to apologise. It’s nobody’s fault that things fell to shit the way they did, but I think I could have handled it better. I didn’t have to cut you off that way. I could have chosen to be nicer.”

His own apology burnt in his throat, but Hansol cut him off. “You don’t need to apologise. You’re the one who tried to hold us all together, long after the rest of considered our ties cut.” Hansol’s ducked his own head. “You’re the best of us, Chan, and we should have treated you better.”

Chan shifted in his seat. “I mean, I’d consider the cake and hot chocolate an apology, but you spilt most of it onto the tray.”

Hansol looked up, a grin like the sun on his face. “And I forgot the whipped cream, right? I remembered as soon as we sat down, but I hoped you wouldn’t notice.”

“I wouldn’t notice?” Chan put and hand to his chest in fake offence. “Of course I noticed, I’m just too well raised to say anything.”

Scoffing, Hansol extracted himself from the booth. “I’ve seen you dig crumbs out of the carpet and eat them, Lee Chan, don’t talk to me about ‘well raised’.”

Chan had forgotten about that and he screeched with laughter as he swung his coat on. The retorts and bickering continued the whole walk home, ending when Hansol shoved Chan into a snow-filled ditch. Instead of helping him out, his ‘friend’ paused to take pictures of Chan’s struggle out from the freezing pits of Hell, his laughter opaque against the setting sun.

They paused at the end of Chan’s drive. Their cheeks were red and their fingers raw from the cold and Chan could see his mother trying and failing to hide her silhouette in the window.

“Happy Birthday, bro.” Hansol pulled him into a tight hug. “I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?” Chan smiled against his shoulder and nodded enthusiastically.

Inside, having fended off curious inquiry from his mother, Chan floated up the stairs. As he pushed open the door to his room, his phone chimed. A picture of Chan, struggling in the snowy ditch, had been sent to the group chat with the simple caption, _Hbd, loser_.

He rolled his eyes, composing a reply as another message popped through.

Then another.

_Hey! Be nice to my baby!_

_OMGGG HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHANNIE!!!_

_Help him, coward, he’s too short to get out of there on his own !!_

_Ahahaha like when he got stuck on top of that car ??!!_

_LMAO I forgot that omgg_

_Happy birthday chan ! Hope you got out of the ditch !_

He smiled to himself, as the messages kept on coming.

**Author's Note:**

> i'll be real with you, I didn't know where i was going with this when i started and .... . .. i'm also not sure where it was ended up but ?? we're here now
> 
> come hang on twitter, be my friend! (@thesolemneyed)


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